Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the field of home automation/domotics. More specifically, the present invention concerns a method and a related system allowing the automatic recognition of electric devices/apparatuses like household appliances, and, in particular, a method and a system conceived to enable automatic detection of devices/appliances, for example electric devices/appliances connected to the power supply, through the use of a home area network, for example and not limitatively a Wireless Sensor Network (WSN).
Overview of the Related Art
Home automation is an evolving field. In this context, several solutions have been and are being deployed for energy management purposes, and standards are emerging for covering the application scenarios. Some of the known solutions exploit WSNs. As known, a WSN is a network of spatially-distributed autonomous nodes with sensors to cooperatively monitor physical or environmental conditions, such as temperature, sound, vibration, pressure, motion, pollutants. WSNs are nowadays used in many industrial and civilian application areas, including industrial process monitoring and control, machine health monitoring, environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, home automation, traffic control. In addition to one or more sensors, each node in a WSN is equipped with a radio transceiver or other wireless communications device, a small microcontroller, and possibly an energy source, usually a battery. A WSN normally constitutes a wireless ad-hoc network, meaning that each sensor supports multi-hop routing (several nodes may forward data packets to a base station).
GB 2451001 describes a smart metering system using low power radio transmission; the system is composed of several sensors which generate consumption signals and a central unit for display information and graphical data about metering.
WO 2009/097400 discloses systems and methods for monitoring and controlling the power consumption of a power-consuming device. During the installation phase the information about position of smart plugs is set: this information is then used to process the power signal accordingly.